Under The Yew Tree
by yelhsamelissa
Summary: The title 'Master of Death' was a joke. So of course a lonely and tired Harry Potter, one who had failed to protect all that he cared for, would jump at a chance to rid himself of the cursed title, even if that meant being reborn in an unknown world. But oh, if only he knew what he was getting himself into with being reborn in Panem... (M for later violence)


_**Hey there, so this is basically the prologue for the story. I have the first chapter in Harry's new world in the works, so I will have that out as soon as I can. In the mean time I hope you enjoy this!**_

 _ **Review and tell me what you think, I always like some feedback.**_

 _ **As always, if you recognise it, then I don't own it.**_

 ** _-Mel. x_**

* * *

Haunted green eyes looked out at the barren wasteland around them as the owner of the eyes sunk down to his knees on the burned out land.

He was so very tired of it all, he constantly hurt all over and yet it still did not end. There was to be no peace for him, not in this endless wasteland that he was trapped in.

He was not sure how long he would manage to keep his sanity now that he was completely alone. It was so very quiet in the world at that moment; even the wind had stopped its constant howling.

He just wanted it to end; by all accounts he should be dead! Earth was no longer liveable; he could finally see what he had been stubbornly denying for three long, lonely weeks. And yet he kept on living, his curse keeping him from gaining his peace. Dammit, he deserved his peace already!

The curse may stop him from dying but it did not stop the pain – he could feel that he was not supposed to be able to survive there, a constant pain throughout his body as his damned curse fixed him up even while the very atmosphere was tearing him apart. It was maddening!

He just wanted it all to end. Why wouldn't it end?

Why was he fated to watch the death and destruction of everyone that he had ever known? Had he not done his part already? Had he not done enough when he willingly walked to his own death to protect others?

Was he being punished? Had his failures deemed him such a cruel fate? Had all of the promises that he had broken really led to this?

Did he deserve this as his fate? Maybe he did…

Pale fingers traced patterns into the dust, trying to make shapes that were familiar as the boy – for that was what he still looked like, even after so many years – thought back on his failings. There was nothing left for him to do, after all, but wallow in the past. (Oh, he could just imagine the smack around the head that Hermione would give him for that!)

First there was his promise to Remus and Tonks, that he would look after little Teddy. He had truly failed on that one; he had abandoned the boy while he was still just a toddler. To top it all off, he had left of his own free will! He had realised that he was not aging and so he was selfish – he ran away from having to watch his family and friends grow old without him.

Maybe if he had not left all of those years ago then he could have done something to stop the muggles from finding out about them, maybe he could have done more and stopped the whole war from starting. Maybe if he had not been too focused on finding distractions in the form of learning new weapons or going on adventures, then everyone would still be alive. Maybe…

There are so many maybes that he feels like his head might explode.

'But of course,' he thinks with a grim snort, 'it would only fix itself afterwards anyway.'

He was sure that his sanity was slowly dripping away. All he felt like doing anymore was curling up in a ball and trying to forget. To forget little Maia Lupin's terrified tears as the final explosions started to go off, the ground underneath them shaking as the end got closer.

She had been the last of any of his old friends' lines to survive.

She was five.

 _"I grew up on tales of you, Harry, but I think I prefer the real thing…"_ he could remember little Teddy as clear as anything, old with his normally laughing eyes unusually serious, even as his hair was still stubbornly blue when by all rights it should have been white. _"There's a war coming and it's only going to get worse, you know that right? People are saying that either magic or muggle are going to get wiped out. I'm old, Harry, I'm old and I do not think that I'll be able to protect my family any longer. So I want you to promise me something, okay? I want you to promise that you'll look after them, protect them, please."_

And Harry had promised. He had promised and Teddy had been killed along with his wife and grandson two weeks later in the destruction of Godric's Hollow, the first of many magical places to be obliterated.

The war had officially started.

He had tried so hard to hold his promise to Teddy, but then more and more places were being destroyed and more families wiped out until it got to the point, twelve years into the terrifyingly long war, where the last of the Lupin's were killed in the bombing of the Magical Schools – they died in Hogwarts, much like Teddy's own parents. Only Maia was left, for she had been in Harry's care at the time.

Maia was only four at that point.

She had witnessed things that no four year old should have ever been faced with. Yet she was still so bright! She was a tiny beacon of hope where everything else was fading away.

The two had spent the following year travelling between the different camps of those that had survived so far, rallying support for one final push against the muggles – creating one last hope.

Maia was like a light at that point for Harry, he was sure that he would have given up if it was not for that little girl that he had grown to see as his own.

They had travelled across all of Europe, they had seen as it slowly followed the same direction that America had four years earlier. Harry had tried to shield Maia from the worst of it, but he knew that he had not succeeded, not when her eyes appeared so much older than they should have.

They were in Canada when it happened (Britain having been completely blown into the sea a few months earlier), the end had arrived.

It turned out that the muggles had been planning one final big push too, so when both pushes went off at the same time, colliding with each other, a series of bangs went off across what remained of the planet as the two worlds finally completely destroyed each other.

Harry had grabbed Maia as soon as he had realised what was happening, he covered her with his own body as she sobbed – he tried so hard to protect her even when deep down he knew that it was futile.

In the end they all died – every single last living creature, dead, except for Harry.

No, he was left with the too quiet company of death, his so called 'servant'. What a load of codswallop.

Like something as widespread as death could ever actually have a master. The whole thing was a trick from death on his ancestor's years ago, a joke that he ended up as the punchline of.

Well it was not bloody funny!

All he had ever really wanted was to be normal, but, as much as he would like to pretend otherwise, that had never happened! Instead of living a full life surrounded by his own family he was one-hundred and forty-four and trapped in his still-seventeen year old body.

He was literally stuck as a specky, scrawny git forever – as Fred Weasley had once ever-so-kindly described him.

Merlin, how he wanted to grow a beard.

Harry slumped forward in the dust, his head turned to the left as he idly watched his finger as it continued to draw shapes in the dust.

"You have finally admitted that this is the end then," a bland voice interrupted his drawing after who-knows how long.

It may have been completely bland but, after three weeks of silence, it was music to Harry's ears. Which may have been part of the reason that Harry flipped over faster than one would think possible for someone who had looked so lifeless moments before, a grin threatening to split his face in half.

"Are you finally going to kill me?" he asked the figure stood over him. That would probably be the other reason that he acted so excited all of a sudden.

Green eyes dragged over the figure before him, greedily drinking in his first sight of something that was not just wasteland. Harry knew just who this was, even if the figure did not look like Harry thought it would.

The blue floral swimming shorts and flip flops were definitely not expected. Neither were the expanse of tanned skin and muscles – and yes, Harry was a little bit jealous right then.

"Why are you wearing sunglasses?" he asked before the figure had a chance to answer his first question.

The figure pulled off his sunglasses and raised an eyebrow at the boy lazing around on the ground before him. "I was on vacation until your little pity fest dragged me back here. Now, are you going to pull your sanity back in so that we can have this conversation like adults?"

"Because you killed everyone," Harry nodded, ignoring the second part of the figures statement for the moment, "You really get a vacation if you kill everyone? Where do you go? Can you take me?"

"I did not kill everyone, I simply did not stop the idiot mortals from heading in that direction," the figure said as it waved its – his? – sunglasses around. "This is not the only world you know, that would be dreadfully boring. And no, you cannot come with me, it is bad enough putting up with you for this long."

"You're Mister Death himself though, so if someone dies then it's on you." Harry nodded, for all intents and purposes appearing not to pay attention to anything else that the figure – Death – was saying.

"Dear Me, give me strength," Death muttered as he placed his sunglasses on top of his head to rest in his curly brown hair. If the great power wanted to appear as a male then Harry would refer to him as such, it made things so much less confusing. And calling Death 'it' seemed a bit rude.

"You swear to yourself? That is quite an ego," Harry told Death with a serious nod.

"I am allowed an ego, you annoyance, I am a god."

The green eyed boy dragged his eyes up and down the so-called 'gods' attire, clearly questioning him on his choices. He did not look very godly. Then again… Harry did not exactly look like a hundred and forty-four year old wizard who had fought in a war or two and had defeated a Dark Lord, so maybe he should not be the judge of what someone looked like.

Death narrowed his eyes at the wizard who was still lying down before him. "Do not push me, Child," for that was what Harry was to Death, even at his advanced age. "I will leave you here to rot, do not think yourself special."

Harry sobered up at that and quickly sat up, folding his legs underneath him. He may be annoyed at Death but he was not completely stupid, he knew when not to push it. He knew he was not special, he was just cursed. He had learned that many years ago.

Death nodded his head when he saw that the annoying brat had finally started to listen.

"That is better," he told the boy as he frowned down at the dust. Death took a moment before he flicked his hand towards the spot next to the boy, causing a blue and white striped deck chair to appear. He sat himself down on the chair and then finally addressed Harry with why he had originally appeared.

"You know that your… immortality, for lack of a better word, cannot simply be taken away to allow you to die as you are, we have already been over this before now, so let's not go over that again unnecessarily." Death told him as he stared out at the barren land around them.

Harry glared down at the dust at the reminder of their last conversation – a conversation that may have included a little bit of begging on Harry's part. He had been desperate back then, terrified at the thought that he had given up his one chance to join his family in the afterlife.

"There is one way for you to eventually pass on though and avoid spending the rest of my existence on this rock."

"There is?" Harry jumped in interrupting before Death could say anything else. "What is it? What do I have to do?"

"You would not have to do much; it would simply require me to remove your soul from this body and to move it to another world. There you would live another life and your time there should clear out the Hallows curse and allow you to then be reaped when your time is over."

Harry nodded, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown. He did not notice the twitching of Death's lips as he spoke. "That sounds too good, where's the downside, Mister Death?"

Death rolled his eyes, "Your other option is to remain here, alone, for the rest of time. You should know as well, that as long as you stay on the remains of this world, it cannot truly end and start over. Which, to be truthful, would be fine by me – it would mean one less world to do paperwork for."

"Alright, no need to jump ahead of me, I didn't say no, did I? I just want to know exactly what I'm getting myself into. I've gone past diving straight into things without thinking, you know."

"Have you really?" Death asked, raising an eyebrow at the shorter boy, "Well done, it only took you nearly a century and a half."

"That was mean," Harry said after a moment of staring at the powerful being. "Would you like to explain what I'm getting myself into now?"

Death settled back into his chair, resting his hands together over his stomach before he spoke, "When I said that you will live another life, I meant that quite literally. You will be starting off as a baby and will have to grow up all over again. I have a family lined up that should leave you with looks similar to what you have now, so you would not need to worry about confusing your small mind over looking too different. As for your name, I am sure that I can influence your new parents to pick a first name similar to what you have now, if that is something that you would prefer."

Harry nodded along, hiding his smile by keeping his face angled down to the ground. The fact that Death would go out of his way to make him a bit more comfortable in his new life just proved that the being liked him in his own way.

"You make it sound like I would keep my memories of this life," Harry said, glancing up at Death once he had successfully hidden his smile.

"You would, in a way. I would simply place a block on them to start with so as not to overwhelm your new body. The block would wear down with time or with trauma, whichever comes first for you."

"Ah great," Harry moaned as he flopped back into a lying position, "I'm going to end up as a traumatised kid stuck with memories from this messed up life. That sounds lovely."

"You could still stay here and rot," Death said, a small smirk tugging at his lips.

"Traumatised it is!" Harry said as he sat back up. "Tell me more about this world then, how different is it?"

"There is no magic to start with, only science. I think that is all you need to know, the rest you can learn as you grow up."

"No magic?" Harry asked with a frown, automatically pulling the energy that had settled as a blanket around him over the years, closer. It would be strange to live without that after so long of having the comfort. "Does that mean that I would lose my magic?"

"Again, in a way it would," Death paused, thinking over his words before he tried to explain, "Your magic cannot simply be taken away however; it is too much a part of you. To take it away… it would leave you broken. Therefore I figured out how to… alter it. In the end your magic would, for lack of a better way to explain it, be pushed into your very body. You would no longer be able to manipulate it, but it would be there to slightly enhance your body and protect it in a way.

"It would be able to heal you in a small way, so no miracle healing, nothing too noticeable but still a bit of help. It should make you tougher, stronger, and faster, you would be able to endure more. You will still be breakable though, remember that, you are doing this so that you can finally die and it will happen, so that means do not become arrogant if you want a full life.

The enhancements would have to be spread out into that many different things so that no one enhancement would be too noticeable. If anyone were to notice then that would be bad for you, you know how people feel about different things."

Harry nodded after thinking silently for a minute. "I can live with that."

"That is good because it is your only option if you want to leave here," Death said as he pulled his sunglasses off of his head once more and started to fiddle with them, he did not bother to warn the younger boy that the enhancements may well be needed in his new life, he could figure that out in his own time. "Obviously you realise that taking this path will clear you of the 'title' that the Hallows gave you, so no need to cover that."

Harry snorted and looked up at Death with a raised eyebrow. "We both know that title was bogus, like anyone could master you."

Death smirked down at Harry, not bothering to say anything to that. "I believe that is everything, Little Annoyance. Do you wish to start your new life now?"

Harry nodded and jumped to stand up; he had no wish to remain on this wasteland and in pain any longer, "No time like the present."

Death stood up as well, his deck chair disappearing as he straightened. He placed his sunglasses over his eyes once more as he surveyed the black haired teenager before him. "Very well, I shall see you when your time is up then."

With that Death pressed the tip of his finger to the tip of Harry's nose, pressing it in slightly as he channelled some of his power through his digit and to the boy's body.

Harry's body dropped like a puppet with its strings cut at the contact, leaving behind only a glowing white ball that hovered over Death's hand.

The powerful being stared at the ball for a moment, "I wonder if I should have warned you more about what you are getting yourself into," he murmured before he shrugged and tucked the ball away safely.

"Oh well, you can curse at me when you die."


End file.
